Marshall Wildfire
Colorado Marshall Wildfire
The Colorado Marshall Fire tore through Boulder County last Thursday, leveling entire subdivisions and searing more than 6K acres. A missing person was found, and still missing are woman from the town of Superior and a man from Marshall. The search for those folks is still underway as of this post.
Amazingly no loss of life has been reported so far, and the cause of the blaze is still under investigation.
Our own Fyrfighter was there, and provides us this time line of the events.
TIMELINE: As the Marshall Fire raced, residents fled their homes and community
David Mullen and Seth Klamann
It’s 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 30, and Brenda Leighton is shopping for fireproof cabinets and safes. She’d long debated installing them in her home in Superior. She does not know that roughly 30 minutes ago, a grass fire had ignited and would soon consume her home of 18 years.
“When I went outside, I was freaking out,” she said. “It was really bluebird sun on one side, but facing north and towards the Louisville area, it was just billowing smoke, hundreds of feet high.
“And then it just got dark.”
Many people lost everything they own, but are already planning on rebuilding. Admirable, and about what I’d expect.
Thanks, Fyr.
Category: First Responders, Guest Link
Scary stuff.
Thanks, Fyr!
It was pretty awful. We live on the opposite end of the Denver metro area and we went out of town on Thursday but the winds were insane. Gusts to 80 mph.
The thing is, high winds this time of year aren’t unusual. What IS unusual is that we have had almost no moisture in the Denver area since June. Seriously, since June all we’ve gotten are a couple of brief rain showers and one piddly snow storm that dropped less than half an inch of snow in late November. Normally we would have had 3 or 4 decent snow storms by this time and that would have meant that a grass fire wouldn’t have spread like this. But with the severe drought we’ve been in for the last half of 2022, everything here is tinder dry.
We finally did get snow on New Year’s Eve, a decent storm (about 5″ at our house in Littleton) and it’s still on the ground. But unless we get some major snow this Winter and Spring, we’re going to have another terrible wildfire year in 2022, sad to say.
Those of you who plan on taking a vacation in Colorado should take note, there were months last Summer when the sky was gray with smoke, even hundreds of miles from the closest wild fire.
I had a chance to talk to one of the crews that was initial attack (IA) on the area we were covering, a neighborhood with occupied and under construction townhomes, and they reported max wind gusts of over 100mph, and 4ft long flaming 2×4’s flying over their heads just before they lost water pressure in the hydrants and had to withdraw from the area.
“….they reported max wind gusts of over 100mph, and 4ft long flaming 2×4’s flying over their heads just before they lost water pressure in the hydrants and had to withdraw from the area.”
Wow. Just Wow.
On what our very own AW1Ed wrote…Admirable, and about what I’d expect.”
“Many people lost everything they own, but are already planning on rebuilding”..
AMEN!!
We personally have never been thru fires such as this….To have your personal belongings go up in smoke…So Sad…Our hearts go out to those families and personel…
Had family members in the late 1940s whose homes were burned down in the backwoods of the South that may have been caused by cigarettes or wood burning stove..homes were not brick..heck, their Outhouse went up in flames.
Lost in their fire were photos, Family Bibles, legal documents, etc etc. The home could physically be replaced. No lives were lost…and they were too poor to have insurance to rebuild another house.
We learned from that incident to purchase a Fireproof Safe…inside are photo negatives.diplomas, drawings from our Children…Memories that one may never be able to replace.
Our Country needs to focus more on taking care of one another of creating another Division..i.e. the COVID19.
Thank You To All For Sharing.
Ditto ninja…Been there…done that…all of the above.
And we have all had that experience when life can change in the blink of an eye. And a “…but for the Grace of God go I” moment. As Ed and I discussed in re one of our deplorables situation the other night, “no matter how bad things look for me/us, someone is having a much harder time of it.”
Not sure if my nephew’s crew from Dakota got sent in CO, left a message the other day, no reply yet.
About all we can do is follow the advice of Gnrl Lewis Armistead “Trust on God and fear nothing.”
KOB, I don’t think any resources were brought in from out of state. It blew up so fast, (though there was a delay in calling state resources, don’t know if that was from the on scene commander, or at the governor level,) but they put out the call for state units at 1530 in the afternoon, and by noon the next day it was snowing like hell, and they sent many of us home. It was just mop-up and patrol at that point.
Tanks FF. J___ is in western SD and they are usually the go to crews for WY/CO/MT when needed. I keep a weather eye on the news feeds for wildfires. I get a tad concerned for my deplorables that are on those front lines. Y’all’s out there are waaaaayy yonder worse than we see here. I think the difference is in the logging practices and the controlled burns that we have. Stay safe, Man.
Thanks KoB, I’ll do my best.. here’s a couple links for sites that can keep you up to date on wildfires. only thing is, they tend to lag a couple days, and more during the “off” season..
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/
https://www.nifc.gov/nicc/sitreprt.pdf
Bookmarked! Tanks Man. Some of my earliest heroes as a lad were “Smokejumpers”. BAMF!
And a shout out/Thanks to LC for the drone footage.
If you hear from TOW, tell him he’s missed.
I’ll also add this video of drone footage of the aftermath:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK63zjsBl7Q
I have friends and colleagues who live in this area, including one who believes he lost his home. We’re incredibly grateful that the casualties were limited, and to all the firefighters, including our own Fyrfighter here, for all the work they did under insane conditions. To most of us, it’s still a little surreal, and I feel the pictures of the fires don’t quite convey the destruction as much as some of the photos or video of the aftermath, like the one above.
Yeah, that’s similar to what we saw, very surreal driving through those areas.. Thanks for posting it, hadn’t seen the drone footage before.
Related item, for those so inclined. A fund set up for any medical workers, from Dr.’s to EMT’s that were impacted by the fires.
https://emsac.memberclicks.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=126:ems-emergency-relief&catid=20:site-content
You realize we cannot endorse products and services here Fyr, charities included.
Doesn’t mean I won’t leave your comment as is, though.
Yes sir, I knew that the site can’t endorse such things, sorry I didn’t check if it was alright if I posted it. Duly noted for future.
OOh Joy! Pudding cup is gonna come tour the devastation along with our side saddle governor.. I wonder if he’ll remember why he’s here, without “doctor” Jill reminding him..
Fyrfighter…
Goody!
Another rounds of “Foot In Mouth” Disease for Plugs!
Just watch!!
Thank You for sharing! Hope all is well!
😉😎
Thanks Ninja,
Yeah doing well, though just got interviewed in regards to the fire, so I owe a LOT of ice cream / beer…